Page 14 - November 2021 IB FINAL

Pacific Health Pacific Health

“AT 33 YEARS OLD, I

FELT LIKE I WAS 90”

COVID-19 CHALLENGES IN
NOUMEA AND PAPEETE

By Nic Maclellan

Hina Montas was making a cup of tea and forgot to turn the
gas off. It was only when her partner came home and smelt
the gas filling the kitchen, that she realised she’d lost her
sense of smell. The young Tahitian had been infected with
coronavirus.
“At 33 years old, I felt like I was 90, like an old granny,”
Hina recalls. “My eyes were bloodshot and I had problems
with my joints. I was having nightmares, because I felt like my
skull was going to explode and my heart was going into tachy-
cardia. I had to sleep sitting up because I couldn’t breathe
anymore, trying to catch my breath.”
Hina is one of more than 45,000 patients in French Polynesia
recovering from COVID-19. The French Pacific dependency has
suffered through two major waves of coronavirus infection,
the first between August 2020 and February 2021, and another
in August and September 2021 that followed a July visit by
French President Emmanuel Macron.
With just 280,000 people, French Polynesia has the highest
per capita rate of coronavirus infection in the Pacific: 45,601
cases and 636 deaths (as of 14 November 2021).

Economic challenges
Like many independent island states – Vanuatu, Cook
Islands, Palau, Fiji and others – French Polynesia’s economy is
heavily reliant on tourism for jobs and government revenue.
And like other Forum member countries, the Government of
French Polynesia faced the dilemma of balancing the protec-
tion required for public health against economic pressure to
reopen international borders to tourism and returning nation-
als.
Last year, Michel Monvoisin, the CEO of national airline
Air Tahiti Nui joined tourism operators to lobby for renewed
access for overseas travellers: “I was a signatory with other
tourism stakeholders to request the reopening of the Poly-
nesian skies. This is vital as we were entering high season. If
they are not welcomed, tourists will go elsewhere as other
countries are opening up.”
The local government was under pressure to allow patients
to return from France and to open up to tourism from United
States and other European nations. When France reopened its
national borders in June 2020, French Polynesia followed. On
17 June, President of French Polynesia Edouard Fritch said:
“You should know that in the United States, French Polynesia
is classified Covid-free! Rich Americans want to come. The

‘I felt like I was 90’ – Hina is one of many Tahitians living with the effects of
COVID-19 Photo: Suliane Favennec

14 Islands Business, November 2021